What It Means When I Braid My Daughter's Hair

There are times when I'm styling my 8-year-old daughter's hair that I get a glimpse of myself—and I see my mother. Our parenting styles are different, but there are some cultural traditions that have been passed through us for over a century, especially when it comes to hair.

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On a Sunday afternoon, when my kid is sitting between my legs on a floor pillow, with her cheek resting on my lap, I braid her hair and remember what it felt like to be in that same position when I was a little girl. When I'm done, she stands and stretches and then runs to the mirror to check out her hairstyle with pride, turning her head to see the neat designs I've managed to create.

There's nothing new or earth shattering about this particular hairstyle. It's not fancy, it's not fashion-forward, and it's not trendy. It's a simple, practical hairstyle for an 8-year-old girl with a lot of hair and an equal amount of energy. I call them cornrows. That's what they were always referred to as far as I can remember. I assume it's because when completed, the braids look like neat rows of corn in a field.

I can't say I was outraged, more bemused and maybe slightly annoyed. But this isn't the first time a cultural tradition has been repurposed. I've been known to repurpose another culture's traditions as well.

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Example: I love yoga, but I'm pretty sure the way it's offered at my gym is not at all like it was originally practiced before it was coopted by women in Lululemon.

I often wear my hair in what are called Senegalese twists, but I'm pretty sure that's not the original name for the style. And I don't even know for sure if it originated in Senegal.

For many years, I wore my hair in dreadlocks. I borrowed the look from the Jamaican Rastafarian movement, which I do not belong to, and I repurposed it to work for me. I've noticed that the style is now referred to simply as locs, presumably to remove the negative association of the word dread. Bob Marley would not approve.

Celebrities have been criticized for cultural appropriation for years. When everyone was doing Madonna's Vogue dance in the early '90s, very few knew about the dance's origins in both Harlem and the LGBTQ community.

More recently, in Beyoncé's Formation video, she uses words like slay, trick, and twirl that also have roots in the LGBTQ community.

But for some reason, the fuss over Kylie Jenner's "boxer braids" hits me in a sensitive spot. Part of the issue is what the braiding ritual represents in my life as a black woman.

I reached out to Patti O'Brien-Richardson, a doctoral candidate at New Jersey Institute of Technology who is teaching a course titled Hair: Culture, Politics and Technology, and asked her about this irritation I feel every time I see another article with a tutorial on boxer braids.

"It makes perfect sense for you to feel that way," says O'Brien-Richardson. "Braiding is often a sacred bonding time and a part of family-building in the black community. It's the essence of our principles of the importance of extended family. Your grandmothers, aunts, cousins, neighbors—we all sat at their feet to have our hair braided. It's a cultural marker for so many of us. That's lost when a celebrity is displaying a hairstyle and not honoring its origins."

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There's a part of me that wants to say that we're taking this all too seriously. But it's true. I am bonding with my daughter when I'm doing her hair. We like looking at braiding websites together for new ideas. And when I go to a salon filled with African women to get my own hair braided, I feel a sense of cultural and heritage there as well.

This boxer braids business also stings because Kylie and company are being fawned over for wearing a style many black people have been roundly criticized for wearing. In the '90s and early '00s, cornrows were worn on countless rap acts and athletes. Allen Iverson, once considered the NBA's bad boy, often had to defend himself for braiding his hair and having tattoos―the exact style being imitated right now. Black women in the military were told it was an unacceptable hairstyle. The male students at Hampton University's business school were banned from wearing cornrows.

How is it possible that our own cultural practices are unacceptable for us but perfectly fine for those who borrow them? But do I walk up to women wearing "boxer braids" and question their knowledge of black history?

I don't want anyone to stop wearing boxer braids. Borrowing is part of American culture, for better or for worse. But when a style becomes part of the news cycle, take a minute to think about it. And feel free to call them cornrows.